This invention relates to a remote control unit or station. More particularly, this invention relates to such a unit for modifying the operating state of a selected one of a plurality of electronic or electrical operating units via wireless signal transmission.
Devices for the remote control of electronic or electrical equipment such as television sets, stereo systems and lighting fixtures or lamps are well known. Such remote control devices are generally portable and provided with manually actuatable keys. Inasmuch as only a relatively small surface area is available on a remote control unit, the scope of operation of the unit generally cannot be shown and explained sufficiently on the unit itself. Moreover, users are not accustomed to reading pertinent operating instructions and, in addition, the instructions are frequently not at hand in practice.
Because of an increasing number of channels for different operating units and a multiplicity of addresses, i.e., equipment or operating units to be addressed and controlled, a user can easily lose track of which operating unit is subject at any particular instant to control by the remote unit.
Conventional remote control units are generally incapable of being adapted to an increasing number of operating units for the reason that the number of operating units for the particular control unit is usually fixed.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved remote control unit of the above-mentioned type.
Another, more particular, object of the present invention is to provide such a remote control unit whose operation is simplified particularly with respect to the selection of a piece of equipment to be controlled at any particular moment.
Another particular object of the present invention is to provide such a remote control unit which has a minimal number of keys.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide such a remote control unit which is easily adapted to different numbers of operating units.